Symphonies 4 & 8

"Strongly characterized and distinctively Russian themes … beautifully and sensitively played … what a fine orchestra this is. There could be no better introduction to Glazunov's symphonic world"
(Classical Music Web)

This is volume 4 of the BIS cycle of Alexander Glazunov's symphonies performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under their former principal conductor Tadaaki Otaka. The previous volumes (BIS-CDs 1308, 1358 and 1368) have been warmly welcomed for the polished playing of the orchestra and for Tadaaki Otaka's evident affinity with the music. Of Russian composers of the period there seems to be an expectation that if they failed to be hounded by the authorities their music could not be taken entirely seriously. Though Glazunov (1865-1936) died in Paris, far from his native St. Petersburg, and though he suffered all sorts of privations during and after World War I he was, perhaps, not sufficiently at loggerheads with the Soviet regime to become accepted as a "great" composer.

This disc brings us Glazunov's fourth and eighth symphonies. The fourth, together with the fifth and sixth symphonies, is part of a magnificent triptych in Glazunov's output. It was in these symphonies that the composer found his mature style. Rimsky-Korsakov described them as the 'opulent blooming of a vast talent'. The Fourth Symphony represents a turning-point and it testifies to the composer's complete mastery of large-scale form and to his masterful handling of motivic and thematic material.

The Eighth Symphony, the last to be completed, was described by the music critic Alexander Ossovsky as 'a genuine drama', a drama that is mirrored in a solitary soul and that remains invisible to the world at large'. The first performance under the baton of Sergei Koussevitzky led to the following comment by a noted critic: 'Everything that Glazunov does is so elegant, everything sounds so bright and lush, all of the colours are so rich and powerful that the Eighth Symphony is an outstanding composition.' As any listener may confirm, these qualities are very much in evidence in this sumptuous recording.